A Canadian teenager is bravely carving out a new life after waking up in an intensive care unit and learning she would soon be an amputee.
Amalie Henze, now 19, woke up on November 4, 2023, after having a series of “strange dreams” to find that she had been in a medically induced coma for three weeks to combat septic shock.
Almost immediately, She told People magazine:She noticed something was wrong with her arms and legs.
“I knew something was happening to my limbs because the doctors, nurses and family were very careful not to let me see what they were like at the time,” she recalled of the surreal nature of those first moments after regaining consciousness.
On November 5th, doctors told her that both her arms and legs would have to be amputated.
“It was a total shock to me when I found out I had to have my limb amputated. I remember the first time the doctor told me, it was a total shock,” Henze said.
“But I think the scariest moment was then when I saw what was happening to one of my legs, because I remember looking down and it was just black,” she added.
“At the time I didn’t really understand, so I was really scared. But then my family, the nurses and the doctors told me about prosthetics, and how many people can live normal lives with them, and I felt reassured.”
Henze received the shocking prognosis shortly after being admitted to the emergency room a month ago with what he thought was an intestinal blockage, a common complication of Crohn’s disease, he told the publication.
“At that time, I was constantly in and out of the hospital with small intestine blockages, trying to work through them and make plans to graduate from high school and move on with my life,” she said of her life leading up to the amputation.
But when she went to the hospital on October 8, she began experiencing strange bladder spasms and felt something else was going on.
“I felt something was wrong so I looked at my mum and told her I loved her. Shortly afterwards a nurse went to take my blood pressure but didn’t know my condition. That’s when she noticed my hands were starting to turn purple and we both realised I was going into septic shock,” she said.
Doctors put Henze into a medically induced coma to help him fight a serious infection.
“I didn’t know what sepsis or septic shock was until I finally woke up from the coma and doctors told me the details of what had happened,” she told People magazine.
A photo Henze shared on her TikTok account shows her in the early stages of recovery, with a tracheotomy and several tubes in her bed.
She acknowledged that her recovery process was long and exhausting, and that she had to move between three different facilities to accommodate her changing needs.
“I was on TPN (total nutrition) for a long time, and I also had a feeding tube. I was bedridden during my time in hospital, so it took me a long time to get used to not being able to move around,” she said.
“Because I had a tracheotomy, I had to undergo a lot of breathing therapy before I was able to breathe on my own. I couldn’t talk while I had the tracheotomy, so after they removed it, I had to learn to speak differently because my voice was quite strained,” she said.
After working to regain basic physical strength, Henze learned to adjust to his new life without limbs.
“It was a really strange experience. There were so many things I couldn’t do on my own and I had to relearn everything again,” she said of her rehabilitation process.
“I’ve had to learn to rely more on my family to do basic things like go to the bathroom, take a shower and eat.”
During his stay in rehab, Henze also had the time to share his situation with people beyond his closest family and friends.
Henze said her friends were “very supportive” once she opened up.
“It definitely took some getting used to, but I’m glad I have these people in my life now,” she added.
Henze also relies on his family, who he added have given him “a lot of help” in maintaining his mental health since being hospitalized.
“I’ve always been a very independent person, so it was really hard for me to adjust to not being able to be independent anymore. Having to rely on my family for a lot of my basic needs was really hard,” she admitted.
“I feel so sorry because I feel like I’m taking up all of my family’s time. They have reassured me that everything is OK and that they want to help.”
She has also found unexpected silver linings in her situation, such as her Crohn’s disease going into remission and learning to walk again with the help of a prosthetic leg.
“If I have one advantage, it’s that I’m a double amputee, because it’s easier for me to learn to use both prosthetic legs than it is for other participants in my program who only learned to use one leg,” she explained.
In just a few months, Henze has figured out how to use her new body to do some of the things she used to do. She’s filmed herself on TikTok applying makeup and painting with the attachments on her elbows.
Henze now hopes to raise enough money to buy prosthetic upper limbs to give him more independence.
“It’s just a question of funding at this point because it’s very expensive to acquire,” she said.
Henze said she’s feeling “a lot better and more confident” these days, and enjoys sharing her positive outlook with her roughly 31,000 followers on TikTok.
“When I had my first surgery, my ileostomy bag surgery, I found comfort in other TikTok creators who were going through the same thing as me. They definitely helped me feel more confident about my ileostomy bag,” she told People magazine.
“So I think they were the main catalyst for me wanting to share my story of having septic shock and losing a limb at a young age. I want to give to other young losers the same kind of influence that they had on me when I was going through a really tough time.”
Henze points out that only about 28 percent of patients with septic shock survive, so being one of the few to have survived such a medical emergency has given her a new sense of purpose.
“The fact that I was able to survive is definitely meaningful,” she said.
“I don’t know yet what that will be specifically, but in the future I hope to be able to continue to serve the young amputee community and the community of young people experiencing medical trauma.”
